In addition to the Google Maps Business Views program, we are pleased to offer our clients a couple of alternatives to that program.
Some businesses do not qualify under the GMBV restrictions for a Google Tour. For example Vacation Rentals, Bed and Breakfasts in private residences, homes for sale and show/model homes listed for sale.
Small Businesses that didn’t qualify under these restrictions can now take advantage of two types of 360 degree virtual tours.
In December of 2013 Google announced that under it’s Google Maps Views Program that virtual tours could now be created under the Photo Sphere program. While there are still some restrictions on these, many businesses that didn’t qualify under the GMBV Program can now have Google virtual tours. If the business or property cannot be accessed publicly, the Photo Sphere Tour will not appear in Google Maps but it will be accessible from the Google Maps Views Profile. This tour can still be embedded in a website similar to the GBP Program. Another restriction is that these tours can link out to a Google Street View Node but cannot be linked to from a Street View node.
Here is a sample of a Google Maps Views Tour. This is a condo located in Kauai, HI. If the map fails to load please refresh the page.
These tours can be very useful for businesses like contractors and renovators that would like to show a before and after of a project or a smaller business that just would like one or two nodes for their business. Pricing for these tours is based on the number of nodes being shot as well as the number of still images that may be required. We would be pleased to offer a free estimate of the cost of the tour. Please contact us here to arrange for an quote.
Feel free to browse our Google Maps Views Profile to see some of the Photo Spheres we have created and we are constantly adding more.
We are also pleased to announce that we are able to create completely custom virtual tours for our clients. These tours offer the ability to the client to host them directly on their own web site and offer far more interactivity than the standard Google Maps Business Views tours and the Google Maps Views Tours. With a custom tour we can embed custom graphics, photos, videos and audio. The cost of a custom tour is only slightly more than the cost of a Google Views or GMBV again depending on the number of panoramas being photographed.
An example of a custom tour we have created can be seen here. This tour is of the same condo above but features a floor plan style navigation menu, hotspot navigation, custom graphics and Google Maps location. We will be constantly adding features to this tour over the next little while so it will be changing a bit over time. This is viewed best in full screen
Contact us here for more information about our custom virtual tours. We are available to shoot your tour in the Southern Alberta area or in any of the Hawaiian Islands (ask about our next scheduled shoots there).
